Internet Desk: Leander Paes’ ambition of making it to a seventh Olympics at Rio will depend on how he turns out at Roland Garros. The 42 year old Paes will be pairing up with Marcin Matkowski from Poland at the French Open.
Seeded sixth, the Indo-Polish pair open their campaign against the unseeded pair of Aliaksandr Bury and Denis Istomin on Wednesday. A win could result in a clash with the all-American pair of Sam Querrey and Steve Johnson. The American duo is coming on the back of a title-winning performance at the Geneva Open.
Paes and Marcin will be pitted against 4th seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares if they cross the first round hurdle. Looking at the draw, it will be a difficult task for Paes to gain crucial points in Paris. If he gets knocked out early, a possibility could be him playing in one of the Challenger tournaments next week to gain some points. That will be the only possible way the veteran can sneak in.
Although the cut-off ranking for the Rio Olympics is 62, the Indian pair is not assured of a place despite having a combined ranking of 62 at present.
While,other Indian in fray, Rohan Bopanna has had a good chance of breaking into the Top 10 individual ranking in Doubles. Bopanna partnering Romanian Florin Mergea has been under tremendous form on clay, reaching the finals in Madrid and a last four finish in Rome. As a result of which, Bopanna is currently ranked world number 11 with a total of 4980 ranking points. The Bangalorean is defending 180 points in Paris owing to a third round appearance last year.
Seeded sixth, the duo will start their campaign against the all-French pair of Stephane Robert and Alexandre Sidorenko. If the Indo-Romanian pair manages to reach the third round without any hiccups, they could face 11th seeded team of Henri Kontinen and John Peers. A possible quarterfinal against defending champions Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo awaits the sixth seeds, whom they defeated in another closely fought match in the semis in the Spanish capital.
If Bopanna manages to reach the semifinals he would gain 720 points and will have a total of 5520 points. This could be sufficient for a top 10 ranking provided a lower ranked team does not go all the way to win the title at Roland Garros.
The best case scenario would be for Bopanna to secure a top 10 ranking which would ensure a doubles team for India. If not, then the combined ranking of Bopanna and Paes needs to be high enough such that they make the cut for the 32 team draw. This would mostly depend on the performance of Paes in the coming weeks.
A place in the men’s doubles draw at the Olympics is also crucial as this would allow India to field a team in the mixed doubles with Sania Mirza, who has already qualified due to her number 1 ranking in women’s doubles.